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Report Slams FAA on Airline Oversight

July 02, 2008 12:16 PM

It's up to the airlines to maintain their planes properly - and up to the Federal Aviation Administration to make sure they do it.

But the Department of Transportation Inspector General has now released a highly critical audit of the FAA's oversight of airline operations.

This week’s report comes in the wake of an incident at Southwest Airlines earlier this year in which an FAA inspector allowed the airline to continue to operating 46 jets that should have been grounded for mandatory inspections. After Southwest reported the missed inspections to the FAA, the planes continued to fly 145,000 passengers, making an additional 1,451 flights over eight days. Inspections later turned up cracks in five jets.

The report released late Tuesday said that "the events at (Southwest) demonstrated serious lapses in FAA's air carrier oversight." It concluded that FAA inspectors developed an "overly collaborative relationship with the air carrier" and have put the airlines first, before the flying public.

On Wednesday, the FAA responded to the report, acknowledging that practices at the agency that regulates the airlines need to change.

"We at the FAA refuse to accept complacency on safety and were deeply troubled by events that surfaced following the SW airlines revelations last winter," the FAA said in a statement. "In that regard, we find the IG’s most recent report extremely helpful and welcome his suggestions."

The FAA further said it agreed with the Inspector General that "we must have a system in which employees feel fully at ease bringing forth concerns in an impartial forum in which there is no possibility of retribution or retaliation."

According to the report, the problems with the FAA’s oversight extend beyond its relationship with Southwest. The Inspector General has found "significant weaknesses" in the FAA's maintenance oversight program, which allowed problems within Southwest maintenance program to go undetected for years.

Continually allowing carriers to self-disclose safety problems and avoid fines "promotes a pattern of excessive leniency at the expense of effective oversight," the report also concluded. For example, Southwest violated four different safety directives eight times since December 2006, including five violations in 2008, the report said. Yet the agency kept allowing the airline to self-disclose violations and never ensured that Southwest took action to correct the repeated violations.

After reporting it had missed inspections, Southwest outlined plans to correct its practices, putting several employees on administrative leave, reviewing its maintenance procedures and vowing to improve efforts to make sure the carrier is in compliance with FAA directives.

The report also takes the agency to task for how it handles and protects whistleblowers.

Finally, the Inspector General has made eight recommendations. The FAA had disagreed with two key recommendations - to rotate supervisory inspectors so they don't get too cozy with airlines, and to establish an independent organization to investigate safety issues raised by FAA whistleblowers.

The Inspector General found that unacceptable and said the FAA needs to reconsider its position.

On Wednesday, the FAA said it "will continue to work closely and the secretary’s independent review team as we remain vigilant in our effects to improve safety."

-Lisa Stark

July 2, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (1)

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Posted by: Glen Gates | Jul 3, 2008 10:21:26 AM

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